Microsoft runs out of US IPv4 addresses in Azure, assigns non-US addresses until they run out?

Microsoft posts on how they are assigning non-US IPv4 addresses to US customers given they have run out of IPv4 addresses.

IPv4 address space has been fully assigned in the United States, meaning there is no additional IPv4 address space available. This requires Microsoft to use the IPv4 address space available to us globally for the addressing of new services. The result is that we will have to use IPv4 address space assigned to a non-US region to address services which may be in a US region.  It is not possible to transfer registration because the IP space is allocated to the registration authorities by Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.

At times your service may appear to be hosted in a non-US location.

Service and Data are located where deployed

It is important to note that the IP address registration authority does not equate to IP address physical location (i.e., you can have an IP address registered in Brazil but allocated to a device or service physically located in Virginia).  Thus when you deploy to a U.S. region, your service is still hosted in U.S. and your customer data will remain in the U.S. as detailed in our Trust Center: http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/support/trust-center/privacy/

We are currently working with a few major IP geo-location database companies to update the location of these IPs which should help alleviate the issues this may be causing.

It’s too bad in this post, no mention is of IPv6 and what the longer term plan is.

After 8 years one of the first AWS evangelist Retires

It is 8 years since I left Microsoft and another friend left as well.  He made the move in 2006 to this small group who you could fit around a few tables in the cafeteria.  The idea this group had was to change how IT consumed resources.  The group my friend joined is called Amazon Web Services.  After 8 years he has retired.

My background is broad. While I have a business degree (BBA - Finance), and experience founding and running successful businesses, my professional experience over the past number of years has been as a technologist -- with experience that ranges from managing teams at Microsoft to writing code to being part of Amazon Web Services since the early days of Cloud Computing.

Cloud Computing is amazing. It proves that a small group of driven people with a vision can change the world. No one would have said just a few years ago that organizations are open to running mission-critical applications “in the cloud”. Fast forward to today, and that’s the conversation on the table.

Currently I am attempting to be retired.

Now that my friend is retired I know he’ll be at home more, and he still lives only 2 miles from me.  

The Cloud has come a long way in 8 years, and my friend has deserved to take a break and enjoy retirement.

How many people do you know have spent 8 years working on the Cloud?

Microsoft expands for 3rd time in Boydton, VA

Timesdispatch posts on Microsoft’s 3rd expansion in Boydton, VA.

Microsoft Corp. will invest $346.7 million to expand its data center site in Mecklenburg County — for the third time — creating 90 jobs.

“This expansion opens up many more opportunities for our county to offer jobs to our citizens and greatly expand our economic base,” Glenn Barbour, chairman of the Mecklenburg County Board of Supervisors, said in a statement. “We look forward to working with Microsoft well into the future.”

When the new expansion is complete, Microsoft will employ 170 workers at the data center in Boydton.

“Each expansion allows us to better meet our customers’ growing cloud service needs,” Christian Belady, Microsoft’s general manager of data center services, said in a statement.

Here are the past two projects.

Microsoft’s original project in 2010 involved an investment of up to $499 million and creation of 50 jobs at the Mecklenburg data center. In 2011, the company invested an additional $150 million to expand the site, and in 2013 announced a $348 million expansion.

 

Biggest use of Containers in Data Centers are Dockers, not the slacks, the software container

There were many people and companies who thought Containers would revolutionize the data center industry.  Containers have enabled a choice, but not taken over.  There is a new container that has buzz. It is not a container for hardware, but a container for software.  Called Docker.

What is Docker?

Docker is an open platform for developers and sysadmins to build, ship, and run distributed applications. Consisting of Docker Engine, a portable, lightweight runtime and packaging tool, and Docker Hub, a cloud service for sharing applications and automating workflows, Docker enables apps to be quickly assembled from components and eliminates the friction between development, QA, and production environments. As a result, IT can ship faster and run the same app, unchanged, on laptops, data center VMs, and any cloud.

There is even a post that Docker is in hype cycle.

The Docker container hype cycles into overdrive

June 10, 2014 6:17 AM EDT
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Here comes the 'production-ready' Docker 1.0.

Docker, Inc. announces its eponymous cloud container product. Based on the open-source project of the same name, the company claims it's now ready for prime time.

In addition to Google, Amazon and Microsoft are moving quickly to accept Dockers.
Docker is a particular format for Linux containers that caught on with developers since its inception 15 months ago. Both Amazon Web Services and Microsoft are moving quickly to make Docker containers welcome guests on their respective cloud hosts.

What is the difference between VMs and Docker?  You don’t ship the OS around.  Makes so much sense.
NewImage

Scary Data Center Outage coming in the next year

It has been over 2 years since there has been a serious data center outage.  An outage that takes out major parts of the data center infrastructure and IT equipment for days.  I brought up this point while at 7x24 Exchange chatting with some friends.  And, they all nodded their heads.  For many companies, financially focused people have cut back on maintenance thinking it is a waste of money.  

We discussed who we thought would be hit with a serious outage. And, even one person suggested a betting pool.  The trouble is everyone wanted to bet on the same company being the one who is hit.  A serious outage can hit many of a range of companies who have been compromising on safety and maintenance of their data centers.

Unfortunately, it takes a major outage, a scary one to get financially focused people to understand the impact of not spending on maintenance of facilities.

Many of you know all too well what could happen.